


The World In Solemn Stillness Lay

by J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Christmas, Christmas sads, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, Friends to Lovers, Godfather Sherlock, Like saving Christmas, Loss, M/M, Medical Conditions, Miscommunication, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Parental exhaustion, Post-Season/Series 04, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock tries very hard at things he's less bad at than he thinks, because it's them duh what else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: Rosie's first Christmas without her mother is approaching fast, and John isn't coping well with the pressures of being a single parent. Can Sherlock scrape his new family back together?
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 123
Kudos: 604





	1. With the Woes Of Sin And Strife

**Author's Note:**

> [[an index and guide to all my Sherlock stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011148)]

These days — in the days after Mary dies and Sherlock learns he has a sister — these days John is quiet and polite.

"Would you mind," he keeps saying to Sherlock. He says it with a tone that signals he firmly believes Sherlock does mind but he still asks because he's too exhausted to do the thing himself. "Would you mind taking Rosie out." "Would you mind putting Rosie to bed." "Would you mind sorting out dinner." There are no question marks at the ends of these sentences, because it seems that John also believes that Sherlock will do these things because something terrible will happen if he doesn't.

Even Sherlock has begun to sense that might be true, though logic dictates otherwise.

On some nights, John's lips are pinched in a strange kind of resigned anger and he's too distracted even for TV. On those nights, Sherlock can't sit still, either, because while the precise contents of John's emotions elude him, he can sense those emotions run as thick as molasses. On those nights, Rosie fusses and eventually John snaps at her. The last time there was a night like that John had been talked to by the manager of Rosie's day care. After Sherlock had tried to coax him to explain, John had grunted something about her acting out and being recommended counselling.

"Do you think that could be… useful?" Sherlock had asked, doing his damnedest to keep his tone from betraying what he thinks about the therapists and counsellors he'd been dragged to in his childhood.

"Her mother's dead. What the fuck kind of counselling fixes that?" John had asked him and poured himself a drink.

He drinks less, now, and for that, Sherlock is glad. Something had happened between him and Molly when she was looking after Rosie just… _after_. John's sister is proof of some risk genes, there was alcohol abuse in their childhood and John's anger issues make him a volatile drunk. Perhaps Molly had laid down the law, threatened to call child protective services. Sherlock has sensed that this is one of those things he shouldn't bring up, even though it would be useful to know.

Sometimes John just… halts. Loses the plot. Drifts away from the situation. Usually it's when Rosie has been particularly testy, which is always made worse by John being impatient with her. When she was still a baby, she could do no wrong. The love John must still feel for her if there is any justice in the world was plain for all to see. Now, it's buried underneath so many other things. John still smiles at her, plays with her, but there is a forced element to it, a disingenuity which tears at Sherlock's heart. He's very certain that child protective services poking into their lives couldn't have brought that open affection back, and why should they get involved in the first place? Rosie is being cared for. There's Mrs Hudson, Molly, Sherlock, even Mycroft. It's just that her father is a little… _overwhelmed? Grieving? Distracted? Depressed?_

It's all just semantics. How John feels to Sherlock is someone standing out in the rain, having forgotten the way back inside.

"Would you mind giving her dinner?" John asks tonight, running a hand through his hair. "I just…"

"Of course," Sherlock promises with an eagerness he doesn't really possess. He has surprised himself, above all, by enjoying the girl's company as much as he does, but John's request grates on him because he has a sense it's not really the help John most pressingly needs.

  
________________

Mrs Hudson is going away for Christmas. Her adult children have come to London to see her, and they're taking her to the village she is from in Cornwall.

It'll be John's and Rosie's first Christmas without Mary. It will be Rosie's first proper Christmas, period, since she'd barely been born during the last one. Sherlock is not a great fan of Christmas, nor does he remember his first four but somehow, this fact seems significant. It feels like there's a task to be performed, and failure could be a cataclysmic event.

Last week, the stress of feeling like he is supposed to take the initiative John so painfully lacks, Sherlock had asked the only person he knows relatively well with a family what to do.

"All the baby shops'll know what's age-appropriate as a gift," Lestrade had told him. "Next year you can go to a proper toy store."

Sherlock has been to one store catering to infants before. Dragged in by Mary acting conspiratorial and friendly in that slightly suspiciously overeager manner of hers, she'd insisted it was a godfather's duty to help pick things. Nothing Sherlock had found online confirmed such a duty, but he'd played along. John had seemed genuinely delighted at the concept of having a family at the wedding, and despite the clouds soon gathering over their marriage, Sherlock had held on to that joy as his guiding light regarding what John wanted and what he should consequently have. Because Sherlock did not know what else to do than to give him that. He wanted John happy and by his side and if the latter could not provide the former alone, so be it. He'd have to take what he could get. Perhaps this was punishment for shunning human connection all his life. _You've made your bed, Sherlock Holmes, now lie in it alone while your best friend tosses and turns upstairs until his daughter wakes up and sleep becomes something other people do._

Sherlock sighs, and sips the tea forced on him by Mrs Hudson. It's good tea, so this is not much of an inconvenience. She'd dragged him into her flat just as he was heading in from tying up some loose ends with a case at the Met. John is at work, Rosie at daycare.

"I've left a little something in the fridge, and you're welcome to raid my pantry if you run out of something," Mrs Hudson tells him. "I've left the tree-decorating to you."

"Me?"

"All three of you. Rosie would enjoy it, I think."

Sherlock has never decorated a Christmas tree. It was his father's task in his childhood; he wasn't allowed to touch the ornaments in fear that he'd steal them away for his experiments or break them. Once he got old enough to understand why those were unfavourable outcomes, he'd grown resentful of all family holidays with their rules and expectations and long sittings-down for being forced to ingest off-putting food. He has no idea how to decorate a tree, nor does he have the desire for such a task. But now Mrs Hudson is making it sound like it would be important. She had always done it for them after gently coaxing John to pick one up from one of the vendors at a corner of Regent's Park. They have never asked her to make an effort for Christmas, but she always does so, anyway.

There will be no party for friends this year. The only one they have had was a disaster, as explained to him by John, after it had ended. Apparently it had been his fault that John had been dumped by a lady friend jealous of Sherlock, and he had insulted Molly, which he had realised at the time and had apologised for, but John had still been smiling, as though these things were just part and parcel of living with Sherlock. He used to always take his side. Now, John does not take sides. He steps away into the dark, alone.

"Rosamund has little reach and her dexterity would not allow hanging up ornaments," Sherlock says to Mrs Hudson.

"She'd love watching you do it, even if she couldn’t participate much," Mrs Hudson explains.

 _Is this a godfather's duty also, then?_ Sherlock wonders.

"You're awfully quiet these days. Is everything alright?" Mrs Hudson asks, and slips a biscuit onto his plate.

Quiet, him? It's John who's changed.

"Everything is fine," Sherlock assures her.

"Fine? She asks, with doubt hanging in the air.

"Alright," Sherlock qualifies.

_Everything is alright, because there is no definition for alright, and everything in life is very relative, isn't it?_

  
______________

The _little something_ from Mrs Hudson turns out to be a fully stocked fridge, a bare tree placed between the sofa and the window and plenty of baked and tinned goods. There is even a wrapped gift waiting on the kitchen table for Rosie, which makes Sherlock panic. _Has John acquired one?_ If not, should he help? _Perhaps another consultation with Lestrade is needed._

John doesn't look happy when he comes homes and discovers all the Christmas things that have appeared.

"Great," he says. "Just great," and even Sherlock can pick up that this is sarcasm. "Now I have to get her something." He puts his coat back on. "Watch Rosie for me, will you?"

"Of course," Sherlock promises. The little girl, placed on the sofa a minute ago, is currently engaged with a Peppa Pig video on John's iPad. Sherlock is not very impressed with the quality of the series as children's educational entertainment, but it does keep her quiet and content when John needs that the most.

 _But what does Rosie need?_ Sherlock wonders.

"She's had a mild fever since noon, so they called me to take her home," John explains as he redoes the buttons on his wax coat. Mary had made him dress better and eat better. John never used to want to spend money on clothes except for a good coat and shoes. Now, he has high-quality shirts and ties befitting a GP and they make Sherlock feel strange.

"But I couldn't just ditch my shift, could I?" John asks, probably rhetorically. "So I took her to the surgery where she's been sitting at reception with Jules with the pad for the rest of the day."

"You could have called me or Hudders," Sherlock offers, and gets a glare in return.

"Yeah, I'll just keep dumping her off on everyone." John curses as he heads downstairs. He slams the door, leaving Sherlock standing baffled and alarmed in the sitting room.

 _Why is John so opposed to help?_ Sherlock finds it no burden at all, and Mrs Hudson seems genuinely happy every time she gets to spend time with John's daughter. Of course, a recently widowed father would need help. Even that period Sherlock tries his best not to ever think about even for a second when John wasn't speaking to him and was drinking, and Rosie was with Molly, seems understandable. _People react in such different ways to losing other people_ , Sherlock has noticed. Having a spouse murdered in front of them certainly warrants a period of losing one's grip on everyday life, does it not?

Sherlock does not miss Mary the person, but he misses the way she acted as a mediator between him and John, a buffer zone between their worse qualities. When she was gone, all that was left were too raw nerves rubbing against each other. Sherlock knows what happened in the morgue was not all about him, but John had _made_ it about him. About the two of them.

The months after Mary died had been ugly. The only bright spot, the only one capable of lifting the spirits of those around her, has been Rosie. She is leaning her head on the back cushion of the sofa, eyes glistening bright with fever, shivering slightly.

Sherlock presses the back of his hand to the little girl's forehead. "You're burning up, Watson."

She makes a small, sleepy sound and Sherlock's first impulse is to cover her with a blanket but with an obvious fever that may not be a good idea. Has John given her something? Sherlock thinks it likely, especially since they'd spent the afternoon at the clinic. He doesn't want to risk giving her another dose if John had just been waiting for preceding does of medication to take effect.

She sniffles.

"Do we need to sneeze?" Sherlock asks, and she shakes her head slightly. She hates being sneezed and usually resists with much more vigour.

Suddenly, her eyes shift up, ending up staring at the ceiling unseen. She keels to her side and her hands, curled into fists, begin twitching. Her left leg kicks a few times before her back arches momentarily. Then, she flops limply against the sofa cushions.

Sherlock's eyes have gone wide, and he has already gripped the girl by the arms to keep her from falling off the sofa. She is boneless but breathing as he picks her gently up and drapes her over his shoulder. He can feel a bit of drool landing on the shoulder of his dress shirt and soaking in.

Thankfully, his mobile is in his trouser pocket. He calls John — the first quick dial, of course — but there's no answer. _He must still have it on silent,_ which is how he keeps it at work _._

'Call me, NOW', Sherlock texts him.

Mrs Hudson will be on her way to the train. Lestrade does not answer, either.

Sherlock curses, and cradles Rosie in his arms. She's whimpering a little but that does not sound like her proper crying. She is very still, frighteningly so. He wonders if John has a digital thermometer up in their bedroom. But would the precise temperature matter? What is the right marching order right now?

_John would know what to do. Who else does?_

Heart thundering in his ears, he then nearly drops the phone from his shaky fingers. He readjusts Rosie's head so that it's not lolling to the side, and calls Mycroft who answers on the second ring.

"I need––" he hastens to say, then realises he has no idea how to summarise the situation. "Rosamund is ill."

"Ill, how? Are you alone with her? Where's John?"

"Gone to the shops. Her eyes rolled up, and it looked like some sort of a partial fit. She's feverish and lethargic."

"I believe this would warrant alerting the emergency services. Best err on the side of caution, eh?" Mycroft suggests.

Sherlock swallows. Rosie is getting a bit fussy now, is that a good sign? Why hadn't it occurred to him to call 999? _Obvious!_

He lays her down on the couch, wanting to get a look at her. Clear mucus has meandered a creek down from her nose, her eyelids are droopy, and she flinches when Sherlock readjusts her position. She still looks a bit out of it.

Why does he feel reluctant to dial the number? Why does he feel like John might get angry at him? Surely, John would want Rosie seen if something is wrong. _John is always angry these days, at anything and everything_.

A sudden panic washes over him. He doesn't know what's going on, and John would never forgive him if he let something happen to his daughter.

"Emergency, which service?" The operator answers.

"I don't–– I have a one-year old girl in need of a paediatrician," Sherlock manages.

"Of course, sir, but I will need some additional information before I direct you to speak to the ambulance services."

_______________

  
  
After playing the infuriating game of twenty questions with the ambulance control centre, Sherlock is relieved that the EMT team does show up ten minutes later. During the wait, the initially listless Rosie seems to perk up. After Sherlock carries her downstairs and opens the door to meet the EMTs, she clings to his neck and begins crying. She's sweaty and toasty warm like a human hot water bottle, and Sherlock doesn't bother grabbing his coat. The EMT's questions repeat too many of the things he's already said to the control centre, but he stifles his annoyance. She gets to sit in his lap in the back of the ambulance during the drive, wide-eyed and frightened of the strange surroundings. At least the Christmas ornament hung from a safety railing catches her attention for a moment.

The ride to St Mary's Hospital's A&E department on Praed Street is blissfully short. Sherlock is mildly alarmed that they're using the blue lights but then again, surely a child having a seizure qualifies as an emergency. Sherlock is, in hindsight, embarrassed that calling 999 had not instantly occurred to him.

Once he and Rosie have been escorted to the designated children's emergency clinic, she is whisked out of his arms and taken to an acute bay. He tries to stride in after the staff but is stopped by a stern-looking nurse. Rosie has broken into a wail, and Sherlock feels an intense pull to go to her, to not leave her alone with these people. _John wouldn't let her out of his sight_.

"Are you the father?" The nurse asks.

"No, I'm––"

"Uncle? Babysitter?" The nurse offers as though Sherlock has displaced his mother tongue. Perhaps that happens to people in emergencies. She's looking at Sherlock suspiciously.

"Godfather," Sherlock declares.

"Where are the parents?"

"Shopping."

"Can you get hold of them?"

"I left a message. Tried to call him. I think he's got his mobile on silent." Sherlock tries to dig the phone out of his pocket, then realises he's forgot it on the coffee table. "I remember his number; could you please try calling him again?"

 _John will be worried if I don't pick up._ "Please, try calling him again," he pleads. "He'll worry something's happened."

"Of course."

Sherlock gives the number, and the nurse dutifully jots it down.

The nurse then directs him to sit in a waiting area in a side corridor. It's empty of other parents and guardians; despite it being wintertime, perhaps there are fewer infection epidemics going on than usual. He vaguely remembers reading about the winter vomiting season not having started yet.

"What can you tell me about what's happened today?" The nurse, her name tag declaring her no less than the Charge Nurse asks, clipboard in hand.

Sherlock would prefer to talk directly to the physician in charge, but perhaps they are busy looking after Rosie. "Will you deliver this information to the rest of the team?"

The look the nurse gives him is patient but a bit world-weary. "Of course."

"She had a mild fever which spiked, and then she began twitching. Her limbs, I mean. Her gaze wasn't very focused, her eyes rolled up into her head and her back arched."

"How long did this last?"

"I don't _know_ ," Sherlock complains. "Minutes? Seconds? Can't have been more than a few minutes."

"How was she before this happened? Any neck stiffness, sensitivity to touch, nausea, vomiting, anything like that?"

"No, she was watching Peppa Pig."

"Any chronic illnesses, allergies?"

"Not as far as I know. She's been healthy, apart from the usual seasonal sniffles and a few stomach upsets. Colicky as a baby but that only lasted about a month." During that month, John's visits to Baker Street had mostly turned into naps on the sofa, no matter how interesting the case going on was.

"Thank you, Mister Holmes. I'm sure someone will come see you soon, tell you how Rosie is doing."

"You'll call J–– I mean, the father?" Sherlock gives the number again. She nods. "What are they doing with her?" Sherlock demands as the nurse starts to pivot on her heel to leave.

"We'll assess her and come talk to you when we know more."

Soon, he's alone. How many times has he sat in corridors like this, waiting for John to get patched up? How many times has John sat like this, waiting for news on Sherlock after he’s been shot or stabbed or battered in the course of a case?

_Did I do it right? Was there a delay in getting help?_

God, he wishes he had his phone.


	2. All The World Give Back The Song

It takes an hour for John to appear. Sherlock is both relieved to see him and a little scared of the ensuing encounter; time to find out whether he's done the right things.

"I'm sorry about the phone," he offers before John gets a word in. He's on his feet, now, next to a potted plant, and John nearly runs past him.

John flinches at the sound of Sherlock's voice. "Fucking hell," he says. "Where've you been? Who'd you leave her with?"

"I didn't leave her with anyone. I forgot my phone when the ambulance came."

"Ambulance? I thought you'd have taken a taxi." John is out of breath, and he drops his plastic shopping bag, not entirely concealing something wrapped in a brightly coloured paper, on one of the chairs lining the corridor.

"What did they tell you on the phone?"

"They said that Rosie's been brought in and that I should come to the A&E department. They were bloody clueless up front, just told me to wait out here." John's frustration is obvious.

"She had a seizure," Sherlock says.

"What?! How? Did she eat something she shouldn't have? Weren't you watching her?"

"She never left my sight. She had a fever. That's all I know."

"What _kind_ of seizure? How long did it last? How was she when they brought her in? When was this?"

Sherlock glances at the wall clock. "We came in an hour and twenty minutes ago. I told all I know to the charge nurse, after which I've not spoken to anyone."

Instead, he'd been fidgeting in here, feeling useless and anticipating John's wrath. For what, he doesn't even know. _John has a lot of anger these days._

He describes the events as best as he can, then starts apologising once again for not being able to text or call John with updates.

"Shut up," John tells him. "Just, just, Sherlock…" Suddenly, he bursts into tears. And they are not the polite, quiet, contained tears he'd shed at Mary's funeral. Admittedly Sherlock had slipped a benzodiazepine supplied by the ever-helpful Mrs Hudson into john's tea that morning, but still. It wasn't like this. It was never like this — until the day he'd been babysitting Sherlock instead of his daughter. Sherlock has seen him this disconsolate only that one time before, when he admitted to having been very tempted to take things with the woman he'd been texting with further. When he admitted to wanting to cheat on Mary.

Sherlock couldn't understand it at the time: why would John want to cheat on Mary? It just made things all the more confusing. John had what he wanted, so what was wrong? Did he not know how to commit to things? Sherlock found it absurd that he was finding it easier to stick to the vows he'd made than John.

 _Three Continents Watson_. He thought John had changed. Why date all those women, why stay with Mary, if that life wasn't what he wanted?

_What does John want? Does John even know the answer?_

John, who has buried his eyes in his palms. "Can't even fucking look at you," he sobs.

Sherlock's heart climbs into his throat and stays there, squeezing the life slowly out of him. Why him? What has he done wrong, this time?

"Why?" He breathes out. He can't even begin to pick apart this riddle. It's like being presented a message in a language he can't even recognise and being told to decipher it.

"Can't have you doing all this for us. I forgive you, Sherlock. For _all_ of it. You can go now."

_Go where?_

"I don't understand."

John snorts wetly, swipes at his eyes with his sleeves. "That's a first."

"Truly, I don't." He sits down next to John, fingers hovering above his own knee. He aches to touch John, to somehow transmit a calm he doesn't feel, never has when it comes to John Watson. _You keep me right and you always leave me guessing._

"You don't have to keep repaying shit. Look what happened to us. We've both done some… things. We're even, we have to be. You don't have to put up with–– with _this_ ," John says, vaguely indicating both himself and the hospital. "We'll just… Once I know she's alright, we'll just go."

_Go where?_

"Yes, John," Sherlock offers. "We'll go home and put her to bed and have a bit of the mulled wine Mrs Hudson left instructions and ingredients for."

Sherlock's eyes go wide as John dissolves into racking, ugly sobs again.

"Just–– just _stop_ , Sherlock," he begs. "Just–– you never know what _enough_ means."

_Enough of what? John? Not humanly possible._

He tries to twist the pieces in his mind, to rearrange them in a pattern that could make sense. _Repayment? Forgiveness? Being even?_

No. _Oh no_. _That's not why––_

"I'm not doing this for you. Or for Rosie. Or, not primarily. Well, of course those things, _these things_ , are for you and her, but it's selfish," Sherlock hastily explains. He's rambling, and he has no idea where his train of thought is going but it feels important and urgent that he tries to explain. "I'm selfish, John. I do these things, because I can't bear seeing you like this, struggling, and I can't tell if I'm expected to help or not but I can't _not_ do it, because it's you. And I don't know if things can get better, I know they won't go back to how they were, but they can be something. For Rosie, they can be something. She doesn't know the difference, because she never lived it," he pleads. "She never lived the way with us that we used to live."

"Before Mary," John completes miserably. "I don't miss her. She's her Mum, and I don't miss her. Not the way people think. I don't miss the conflict and the guilt and the what-ifs."

"I do these things because all I want is for you and Rosie to stay," Sherlock says and it's such a simple truth he should have voiced it before. John should have known this. Maybe it would have spared them of a lot of heartache.

"I'm not… much, Sherlock. The last years have been… they've done things to me."

"In that, we are equally matched. As much as I'd love to go back to the beginning, we have to remember it wasn't exactly uncomplicated, either. You were recently invalided home from the war, I had spent a lifetime convincing myself I should abandon hope of ever living a life that wasn't constructed on an ethos of solitude."

"Yeah, not helping," John dismisses and leans back in the chair. His shoulders are slumped and he's pale and tired. "We don't have much to offer to Rosie, do we? Two people, pretty much wrung dry by their lives."

"I would have rather grown up with us than my parents. Would have been more interesting," Sherlock muses.

John's lip twitches up, then loses whatever joy had been attempting to break through. "I don't know how to do any of this. When I think I'm finding some footing, she keeps growing and being different and acting out in new ways. I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails, and all the people at the day care, the other parents… I don't enjoy being the poor fucking single dad widower, Sherlock, I really don't. They expect me to fail and pity me for it. I hate going there."

"Then don't. Mycroft will find her a better spot. Or hire help at home."

"I don't want that. I want to manage."

" _John_. No one would begrudge you for struggling. Never mind what someone thinks or someone inconsequential pities you; I don't. You can do better. _We_ can do better. But I don't think we can do it by worrying too much about the future. Rosie doesn't. All she knows is right now. I find that quite reassuring and relatable about children."

"It's because you're rubbish at planning and consequences, too."

"Can't really argue that."

"Sometimes… sometimes I feel like you're better with her than I am. You don't have that sort of patience for anyone else. You seem really interested in her."

"I find the process of her learning quite fascinating, yes. A creature of pure logic. At least some of the time."

"Shame she can't genetically take after his godfather," John jokes.

 _John joking has to be a good sign._ "Taking after a John Watson is quite an agreeable lot in life."

"But what about Mary?" John pronounces the last word like a curse. "I don't really know anything about her. I knew what she wanted to show me, what I chose to believe because I didn't want to look back."

"Every child carries novel combinations of chromosome pieces, new gene mutations. Nature _and_ nurture, John."

"And a fine job I'm doing with the latter," John scoffs.

"She won't remember this year. Perhaps she'll remember vague things, impressions, the atmosphere. But she won't remember Mary in any way that won't be filtered through us. You can redefine her future, John, if you so choose. But you must stop acting as though you've already failed."

"I'm so tired. Of all of it."

"Then you have to accept the help — accept it without taking it as further proof of your alleged failure. By accepting it, you're putting her first."

John smooths a crease on his jeans. "Maybe." He doesn't sound very convinced.

"Once she's been seen to, we'll go home, decorate the tree, put her to bed and have a nice night. Things aren't great, but can't they be better than they are right now?"

John seems lost in thought, now. "I told you… I told her… I'm not who she thought I was, either. I told you there's someone I want to be, but I don't know who that is. I thought I did, I hoped I did. What you think, who you think I am, I don't know anymore. But I still feel like you have a clearer idea of it than I do. And that's, that's a lot of expectation."

"You have nothing to prove to me," Sherlock says softly, slips a hand to cover John's fretting fingers on his lap. "We just get the hell on with it. That's all there is to it."

If kicking his drug habit a total of seven times has taught him something, it's that there is value in taking one day at a time when things are the toughest.

"I'll have to take your word for it," John says, gives his hands a squeeze, then stands up to shaky legs.

"Please do," Sherlock prompts. "I'm always right."

Now, John does smile. "Egotistical berk."

Once, this would have been an accusation. After Mary died, it was an accusation of homicide. Now, it's not weightless, but not laden with pain, either.

 _It is what it is_.

A man in a white coat and a tie is approaching down the corridor. "Mister Watson?" He calls out.

John blinks into a sharper existence, visibly wills on his doctor persona after springing to his feet. "Yes? Is Rosie alright? Can I–– _we_ see her?"

The doctor — presumably a paediatrician — smiles. "Of course. Let's sit down first."

John hesitates, antsy and suddenly angry again; Sherlock now has evidence that this might be worry channelled into something more proactive. Eventually, he plants himself back down at the edge of a chair, pinning the doctor down with his gaze.

"Rosamund has had what we believe is a febrile seizure. Her fever's down, now, her neurological exam and imaging results are entirely normal and we have no reason to believe it was anything malignant. However, since it was the first time — at least I assume so, judging by what Mister… um… Holmes?"

Sherlock nods.

"––what Mister Holmes told us. Is there a history of fever fits in your family, Mister Watson?"

" _Doctor_ Watson."

Sherlock smiles in secret, turning his head to look down the corridor. John likes pulling rank, and he doesn't like things being dumbed down by his colleagues when talking to him. After Sherlock had been shot John had made damned to sure every staff member knew who and what he was and wanted to know _everything_. Sherlock knows he'd felt responsible by extension, just as Sherlock had after Mary's death. He'd felt like that, because John had told him in no uncertain terms that he was responsible. Even though John had later retracted that sentiment, the truth remains that Mary is no longer with them because of Sherlock, never mind who did what and how deliberately. Yet tonight, John has told him he thinks… _what, exactly? That their marriage was doomed, anyway?_

Sherlock forces himself to refocus on the conversation going on between the two physicians. Rosie is fine, that's all he needs to know, but John may want to discuss these further details later.

"I think my mother had them as a child but can't say for sure about me or Harry. Harriet, my sister, that is," John says.

"They're pretty common in children her age, commonly occurring between six months and five years of age. They can be pretty scary, but now that we've ruled more worrying things out, they can be monitored and treated at home most of the time."

"Most of the time? What is that supposed to mean?" Sherlock asks.

"If a seizure lasts over five minutes or the child's colour becomes pale or blueish, you need to contact emergency services."

"But is it…" Sherlock tries to rearrange his thoughts. _Wasn't this supposed to be harmless?_ "Is it epilepsy?"

"Epilepsies are syndromes, and febrile seizures are not considered one of the entities, no. The risk to develop epilepsy proper is slightly higher in children with focal or extended febrile seizures, but with fits as short as the one Rosie had the risk is still very low."

"How low, exactly?" Sherlock demands.

"About two percent."

"But what about prolonged seizures? What if–– if–– will there be permanent damage?" Sherlock asks.

The paediatrician is looking at him with patience. "Studies have shown that even children with prolonged seizures perform normally at school and perform as well as their siblings on cognitive intellectual tests."

"Perform _normally_? What is that supposed to mean?"

Suddenly, John's hand perches on his arm, and his expression is apologetic. "He means Rosie's alright."

"I don't even know how long the fit lasted," Sherlock argues. "I didn't have the sense to time it."

"You told us that you called the emergency services after you called your brother, and by then the seizure was over, and Rosie had shifted into a post-ictal state."

John's brows hitch up. "You called Mycroft?"

Sherlock suddenly feels very defensive. "I––"

John gnaws at his lip and his expression is strange. "No, it's… it's fine, Sherlock. It's just funny how you diss him all the time, but when there's something bad going on that's who you always turn to."

"I do no such thing," Sherlock scoffs.

"Should we add Mister Holmes to Rosie's contact information, or was this a… temporary child-minding arrangement?" The doctor's tone is careful.

"Yeah, no, yeah, of course he should be added," John stammers. "He's… we're co-parenting."

John says it with more confidence than Sherlock would ever have expected.

"Yes," Sherlock offers in confirmation, hoping to sound composed and calm and grown-up, even though his heart is doing strange things and he can't quite look at john who's looking at him with such fondness that suddenly it's as though none of this, none of the last two years ever even happened.

"What imaging have you done?" John asks.

"Head CT without contrast dye and limited slides. We try to avoid CTs in children her age, but this was an emergency and Rosie had eaten, which would have necessitated intubation for an MRI only to rule things out we weren't suspecting, anyway, so the decision was made."

"You said she's had some biscuits at the clinic before you came home," Sherlock defends himself.

"Perfect recall," John breathes out. "Yeah, sounds sensible," he nods at the paediatrician. "Can we take her home?"

"Yes, of course. We'll remove the IV; she's had some ketoprofen for the fever. Have you got something you can give her at home if it rises again?"

"Yes," Sherlock hastens to respond. "There's ibuprofen and paracetamol." He desperately wants to take Rosie home, to take John home now, to take _his family home_. He'd meant every word when he'd told Mycroft that's why John had to hear about Eurus, too, but never before has he had the idea confirmed by John like this.

_______________

"Put your feet up," Sherlock prompts, and arranges a pillow on the coffee table after passing John a mug of mulled wine.

"You've suddenly turned into some domestic god," John teases.

Sherlock spreads his arms to indicate all the signs of Christmas in the sitting room. "Hudders' doing, not mine." Except perhaps the tree he's just decorated and the fire he's started.

Rosie is sleeping upstairs in her and John's room. The small space is getting cramped the bigger she grows. Eventually, they'll have to dedicate a room to her, and that would mean… what? John kipping on the sofa? Sherlock giving his room to John?

 _No_. Whatever is going on here, they can share a room. Whether that means sharing a bed is a conundrum so alien, so hopeful and strange and unlikely that Sherlock decides it's a question best left to another day.

"You did great today," John says quietly.

"You would have recognised what happened to Rosie and acted accordingly."

"I doubt it. I _know_ about fever fits, but when it's your own kid… Besides, you did act accordingly."

"I called _Mycroft_ ," Sherlock says with disgust. "Only to be told the obvious, to call 999."

"Every time Mycroft opens his mouth, he makes stuff he says sound like it should be obvious to everyone else, who are all idiots."

Sherlock chuckles.

John reaches an arm across the back of the sofa, and his fingertips then shifts some of Sherlock's neck curls. "This is nice."

Sherlock nods. This is the nicest thing that has happened to him since he'd returned from the dead. When he'd come back, everything had been wrong. Slipping through his fingers. Now, tonight, he suddenly feels like he can stop expecting it all to be a mirage.

"I emailed Rosie's daycare while you were getting stuff out of the fridge," John says. "You can pick her up, now; they have your info."

"Oh."

John takes his hand off the backrest, and Sherlock is briefly disappointed.

"I didn't know you wanted any of this. It just all happened so fast. Mary, Rosie…" John muses, and there's a softness in the way he pronounces his consonants which tells Sherlock the mulled wine is kicking in.

John chuckles bitterly. "You didn't even seem to want to be a godfather. Why'd you want this, us, me?"

The words are out, soft but determined, before Sherlock even realises that he possesses them. "I'll always want you. Today was nothing, in terms of what I'd do for the two of you."

"I know." John is looking at the fire flickering and dancing in the fireplace. "You died for me, and I hated you for it."

Sherlock grimaces. "You didn't have the full picture, then. Sorry about that."

John pats his knee, lets his palm rest there afterwards. "I heard you. At the wedding. I _heard_ you, Sherlock, but I thought that was it, that the choice had been made, and you accepted it. That saying those things were your way of saying you gracefully stepped aside."

"I did gracefully step aside."

"You shouldn't have," John says, lifts his hand to Sherlock cheek and kisses him.

It's not the cataclysm Sherlock had expected or imagined, lying alone in his bed below John, listening to the creaks of the floorboards and the old bed up there, listening to signs of life which had suddenly penetrated his lonely existence. It's not a cataclysm, it's a seal. A final confirmation that the anxiety churning in his stomach these past few months, the twisting agony of loss after returning from the dead, the warmth glowing in his entire being those first months they moved into Baker Street together all those years ago was _this_ , entirely, completely, perfectly _this_.

 _I love you_ , Sherlock thinks. _I loved you before I even dared to call it that_. One of these days, he will say the words, but there's time and this is so frightening and exciting that he'll have to take it one step at a time.

Right now, he has other new words to analyse. _Family_. _Co-parent_. Things he never thought he'd want before John Watson determinedly shoved them into his life.

John is looking at him, studying his expression inches from his face, concern etching itself slowly but surely deeper into those lines which have grown older in the past year. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock grabs his shoulders and pulls him closer, tilting his face just so he can press their lips together again. John should never doubt him again. John should never doubt _this_ again.

 _Rosie shall get her own room sooner than planned,_ Sherlock decides.

——— The End ———

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the chapter titles are from "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear". Betaed by 7PercentSolution.


End file.
